feverish pace at which organizations grew, the nation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wide use of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all lines that divided the laboring class, whether geographic or trade, the violence and turbulence which accompanied the movement—­all of these were the signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, which had finally risen in rebellion.  This movement, rising as an elemental protest against oppression and degradation, could be but feebly restrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, of course, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience.  But, if the origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneous and elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existing organizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor.  These served also as the dykes between which the rapid streams were gathered and, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure, still they gave form and direction to the movement and partly succeeded in introducing order where chaos had reigned.  The issue which first brought unity in this great mass movement was a nation-wide strike for the eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886.

The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by the trade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of the Knights adopted an attitude of hostility.  But if the slogan failed to arouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, it nevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor.  The great class of the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon the Knights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring masses from oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue upon which the first battle with capital should be fought.

The agitation assumed large proportions in March.  The main argument for the shorter day was work for the unemployed.  With the exception of the cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.  The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of the movement.  Early in the strike the workingmen’s cause was gravely injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.

The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity.  For what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical justification, the contemporary Chicago “anarchists,"[19] the largest branch of the “Black International,” had elevated into a well rounded-out system of thought.  Both